FamilyLife Today®

Speaker 1

In isolation, that's where the enemy can really, really do a number on us. So whether you're in a difficult friendship and you're worried the friendship may end, or if you're in a difficult parent relationship with your parents, or even if you're the parent and you've got children that you're having a difficult relationship with, or a marriage, or whatever it is, don't stay in isolation.

You know, it's not that you want to tell everybody, but you need to tell somebody. Choose wisely who those somebodies are.

Speaker 2

Welcome to family Life Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Dave Wilson.

Speaker 3

And I'm Ann Wilson. And you can find us@familylife today.com. this is Family Life today.

Speaker 2

So I didn't know it growing up in this home, but watching my dad drink every night.

Women took me on trips when I was 5 and 6 years old with his girlfriends while married to my mom.

I never realized my mom couldn't set a boundary. She just let it happen.

Speaker 3

And she knew about all of it. He let her know about all of it.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Speaker 2

I mean, again, looking back, it's like, mom, come on. And she did not choose to divorce him until my older brother, who is 10 years older, probably 18 or 19 years old, said to mom, you can't let this go on. He is destroying our family.

And again, I'm a little boy at the time, thinking it's the worst thing that ever happened to my life. When my mom and dad got divorced, it was the best thing for me. I'm not saying divorce is good. I'm not. I'm saying it's a really hard decision she made.

But if I would have stayed being raised by that man, I'm not the man. I'm not sitting here right now. I'm literally not sitting here right now. My mom saved my life by making a really hard boundary choice. She said, I'm not gonna let this chaos go on anymore.

Speaker 3

And it's interesting, too, because your dad started getting some help after that. Yes.

Speaker 2

That decision changed his life for the good.

Speaker 3

We're pretty excited. We have Lysa Terkers with us in the studio today. Lisa, welcome back.

Speaker 1

Thank you so much. I'm just proud of your mom for realizing that she wasn't powerless in the situation. At first, it sounds a little bit like she's powerless, you know, and I understand that. We are to deeply respect the institution of marriage, and at the same time, we have to look and see that Jesus prioritized the sanctity of life over even the institution of relationships and marriage.

And you know, your mom was in a terribly unsafe situation. I mean, he was physically abusive as well. Yeah, so. But even sexually transmitted diseases, you know, getting in a car or her kids getting into a car with someone who is inebriated—there's just so many things.

And you know, I think sometimes in relationships like that we can start to feel powerless because the other person won't change. I get that it can feel very powerless. But while you can't change another person, you can ask yourself, "What can I do?" A good way to establish this is, "Okay, if this, then this." And it's not meant to be a threat. I would always suggest not to do it in the heat of the battle, you know, not in a moment of conflict.

But think logically, using the logical part of your brain: "Okay, if this, like if you drink, then this—my kids will not get in that car with you. If you have another affair, I will not continue to live with you." And of course, we want to take steps, not leaps. We want to be very careful about that. So it's not like we want to swing from one extreme to the other.

But you're not powerless in a situation where another person refuses to change because you have the ability to keep yourself safe, sane, stable, and self-controlled. But that may mean you have to limit that person's access to you until either they become more responsible with the access you've given them, or you make the choice to say goodbye.

Speaker 3

I just counseled a woman a few weeks ago who called and said, "I think my husband's cheating." And it hadn't been the first time. She asked me, "How do I approach it?" I said, first of all, you are praying, you're gathering friends, you're in the word. It's not an empty threat that you're going to make. You need to really seek Jesus and what this looks like.

But I did say, I would start by saying, "I'm choosing us. I'm choosing us, our family, our kids. I'm choosing Jesus with us." But it looks like you are not choosing us based on the decisions and the things that you're doing. So I'm going to always choose us.

But until you can do that, and it looks like you're doing that—in other words, you're not cheating on us, you're not drinking, you're not partying, you're not doing drugs—until that stops, to me that says I'm not choosing our family. And so that can be a healthy boundary.

Speaker 1

Absolutely. And of course that's a serious situation. When I went through a divorce, there was some criticism, with people expecting me to stay no matter what. I understand that because I deeply respect marriage and intended to keep my commitments.

You know what? I did, and in the end, I didn't walk away. I had to make the gut-wrenching decision to accept reality. When you accept reality, sometimes their choices or the state of a broken-down, dysfunctional relationship means it is no longer safe, stable, or allowing you to remain self-controlled.

I think we need to acknowledge that sometimes there are really hard choices that have to be made. I refuse to stay in a marriage that does not honor God, and it sounds like that's where she's at.

Speaker 3

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2

It's interesting, you know, as you think about your ministry life, you know, President.

Speaker 3

Of Proverbs 31 Ministries, you've written 25, 26 books.

Speaker 2

Don't even know because you've written so many. And last time we had you on was, you know, forgiving what you can't forget. And honestly, I. I've said this as a preacher from the stage. The best book I had ever read on forgiveness was Louis Smed's Forgive and Forget. And it literally helped me forgive my dad when I was in my 30s. Your book was so powerful.

Now I'm like, yeah, forget Smeds. I don't mean that. But I hand yours out. And toward the end of that book, you started hinting at boundaries. This book, Good Boundaries and Goodbyes, obviously you started it there. Did you ever think, 30 years ago, even 20 years ago, I'm gonna write a book on boundaries? I mean, this is what I'm gonna write on.

Speaker 1

No, no, because I didn't think that I would. First of all, I didn't think I would ever write a book because it's really hard to get published. But I could have never seen the twists and turns that my life would take. I write based on my own experiences because when I write a book, I know I'm gonna be knee deep in studying that for two years. I want God to teach me, and I want God to hold me accountable to what I do. I want to grow, and I invite my readers to come along with me.

So, so many times the next topic is just the next part of my own journey. I couldn't have predicted where all of this was gonna go at all. But if you do look at the titles from *Uninvited*, that was the book on rejection. The very next book was *It's Not Supposed to Be This Way*. That's on major life disappointments, and what do we do about it? How do we make peace with it?

Then the next one was *Forgiving What You Can't Forget*, and the next one after that was *Good Boundaries and Goodbyes*. It's just like each message is just followed along with my own spiritual and emotional journey.

Speaker 2

And, you know, just my opinion. It feels like that's where at least Christianity in America is. It feels like we need somebody like you to write on these topics. I don't know. Is it just me? It just feels like we're in a culture where we think the most loving thing to do is lay down my life, take the abuse, take the verbal abuse, just let it happen. Am I right? It just feels like somebody needs to speak out.

Gary Thomas wrote *When to Walk Away*, and we had him in here, and it's like people were just bashing him. Like, you never walk away. It's like, well, Jesus actually did. And there's times when the boundary is healthy. And it's actually. You say a boundary is God's idea.

Speaker 1

It is, yeah. We see it from the very beginning of the Bible, when God established the foundation of the world. You know, we see boundaries there. And it continues all the way through Scripture. I mean, as it continues all the way through Scripture, it became astounding to me. How have I missed this? How have I missed it? You know?

But I also have deep compassion for people because the motivation of saying, stay the motivation there is let's protect marriages. And I do think marriages need to be protected.

But there's a big difference. As my friend Leslie Vernick says, this helped me a lot. There's a very big difference between a difficult marriage and a destructive marriage.

Speaker 3

What's the difference?

Speaker 1

A difficult marriage is the typical difficulties that you go through when you try to do relationships with other people, which is every marriage. Every relationship. Go to a great counselor, right? A destructive marriage is where you are having to diminish the best of who you are to cover up the worst of who someone else is. That's a destructive marriage. And there's different levels, there's different situations, there are different scenarios.

And that's why I say if you're. If you feel like you're in a destructive marriage, don't go at it alone. Get other people. Sometimes it's beautiful when you draw boundaries. Sometimes boundaries are an effective communication tool. It's making the other person aware and making you aware. If you have really smart people, go get a counselor that's specifically trained in that exact dysfunction that you're walking through.

Sometimes the redemption of God, sometimes it is reconciliation and it is beautiful. Boundaries provide such a healthy way to get there. Sometimes God's redemption is a rescue, and sometimes that's true as well. That's why it was important for me to write *Good Boundaries and Goodbyes* to make sure that we did some heavy lifting with the biblical theology of a goodbye.

One of the most fascinating things that I discovered in my research was the original term goodbye. It wasn't initially goodbye. It was "God be with ye." People, in saying goodbye, would say, "Oh, God be with ye." Right? Then it was shortened to "God," and then it was like "bwy," and then it eventually became goodbye. But if you go back to the original meaning of that, isn't it fascinating that so many of us, maybe because of friendship breakups or family of origin drama or just devastation or abuse or trauma or whatever it is, we will experience goodbyes in our life?

I had never heard a sermon preached on a goodbye. I had never even heard somebody teaching on it. It was important to me to say, we don't want our relationships to end. We don't want goodbyes. But sometimes that does happen, and we have to acknowledge it. But why let it get to a place where the goodbye is just so awful and treacherous and terrible?

Why not take a step back and say, okay, God teaches me to pray for my enemies. When I pray for my enemies, I know I'm positioning them. I'm asking God to position them to be blessed. In order to be positioned to be blessed, then God is going to handle what needs to be handled up there. It's not my responsibility. I can't control it. I can't manage it. Right?

But isn't it so much more beautiful that instead of goodbye and good riddance, if we were to say goodbye, "God be with ye." Goodbye. "God be with ye." Goodbye. I had a really profound moment in the very end of the book where I had to decide what I was gonna do with my wedding ring. It was just a deeply hard moment for me. I remember I was in my closet and I was by myself.

Speaker 3

How many years had you been married?

Speaker 1

Almost 30. And I took my wedding ring off and I just stared at it, and I thought, I don't know what to do with this. But two weeks before, a college friend of mine found my childhood Bible in a box in her attic. And that childhood Bible, I hadn't seen; I had no idea whatever happened to it, but she found it. She figured out how to get in touch with me. She got the Bible to a friend of a friend, who passed it on to another friend, who then passed it to my daughter. And my daughter had just brought me the childhood Bible.

When I opened it up, there were some scriptures that I had highlighted from all those years ago and some notes that I had written that were such confirmation from the Lord that I was doing the right thing, as hard as it was. So, I wound up taking my ring and tucking it in the pages of my childhood Bible and closing it, putting it high on the shelf with all the other special mementos that I've saved over the years.

It was like bookends of my life: a little girl who was reading scripture and dreamed of a life that would one day be hers, and then the ending of this portion of my life that I thought would be forever. Yet, God is still creating redemption, even in the midst of the twists and turns that I didn't see. It was just a really powerful moment to be able to tuck my ring inside that Bible. And as I did, I prayed, "God be with ye. God be with ye. God be with you."

Speaker 2

Yeah, when I read that, I teared up.

Speaker 3

Me, too.

Speaker 2

I mean, I can.

Speaker 3

I'm doing it now.

Speaker 2

See you. That's a hard moment.

Speaker 3

Obviously, even at the beginning of the book, you talk about how we all long for the Hallmark movie. We do, don't we?

But as I hear you share that, that's a God life. He's with you at the beginning, and he's with you at that portion, too. He's always with us and he always hears us.

But it's sweet when we can trust him. And as you're saying, and bless others that have hurt us.

Speaker 1

That's right. That's right. So that was another important part of this book. Not only drawing healthy boundaries with the motivation to be, to protect our relationships, but also effective communication. Communication is an opportunity. Healthy communication does help us protect our relationships.

It was also important for me to tackle the subject of goodbyes, because sometimes that is a reality as well. When we say a goodbye, we want to take steps, not leaps, and boundaries allow us to take those appropriate, healthy steps. If and when the goodbye happens, we want to honor God all the way through to the end. We will not do it perfectly. Goodbyes hurt, and there will be a lot of strong emotion depending on the dynamics of the goodbye.

There will be times when you feel like you can't make it. There will be times when you just want to crawl in your bed, throw the covers over your head, and tell the world to go away. There will be times you say things you wouldn't normally say and do things you wouldn't normally do. Yet the secret really is to always come back to the Lord and ask Him not, "Where is my future going to go from here?" or "Why did all of this happen?" but rather, "What now, God?"

Let me just honor you with what's right in front of me today, and then the next day. Let me honor you with what's right in front of me the next day. At the same time, we must recognize that God does want us to preserve the sanctity of life. We need to keep all of that in mind and seek wise counsel around us.

Speaker 2

I mean, as you think about even that thought, sanctity of life, even with your own children, how do you think your decisions, you know, set boundaries and make some hard decisions have affected them?

I know that I mentioned earlier when my mom and dad divorced, I was seven, ended up moving from New Jersey, and my dad was an airline pilot. So we had a really nice house in a gated community and had a lot of money. Then I remember growing up with not much money. Single mom in the 60s when there weren't a lot of single moms.

But short long story is I did a marriage conference near that city, and Ann wasn't with me. I was speaking with another couple, and I borrowed a car and I drove. I thought, I want to see if I can find my old house. It was an adventure to get through this gated thing. But anyway, I got to the house, walked up to the door, and the person says, "Oh, you must be little Davey." And I'm like, what? We bought the house from your dad? Anyway, they knew me, knew our family.

I literally got to walk through this house that I hadn't been in since I was seven years old. But here's what I felt. I felt traumatized. I remember each room. I remember the driveway. I mean, as I walked around, it wasn't a good feeling, which I thought I would have. It was like, I remember fights and yelling and drunkenness and just abuse.

And so I remember getting in a car, feeling like, wow, I am so glad my mom made that decision. So that was my experience. You made a big decision. How has it impacted your kids, you think?

Speaker 1

Well, I think anytime there is an ending of a marriage, it affects the kids dramatically. You know, I mean, there's no escaping me. My parents got divorced and I was definitely affected by that. But I have also seen that my kids have learned themselves how to draw appropriate boundaries.

And so while there was a lot of trauma, there was also this beautiful thing that happened that everybody was kind of forced to go to get good Christian therapy. And so we've all benefited from that, you know. And I won't paint rose-colored glasses over it because my goodness, there's just a lot of hurt and a lot of pain. But my kids are really good at boundaries. So good, in fact, that we have healthy boundary conversations.

As adult children, they've had to set some boundaries with me and I've had to set some boundaries with them. But because we've been on this journey together, boundaries don't feel so shocking. Boundaries feel appropriate. It's kind of understood, you know, that healthy relationships have healthy boundaries and we've used them as communication tools.

So do I ever get upset when they set a boundary with me? Of course I do. I'm like, wait a minute, you know? But we can have healthy discussions. The sign of a healthy person is that they respect healthy boundaries. I want to be a healthy person; therefore, I have learned to respect healthy boundaries. I think my kids have done the same.

Sometimes I think people are shocked, like, wow, you guys just talk about stuff. And it's like, yeah, we do. Because communication is a very high priority in our family now, and setting boundaries is part of that. Boundaries don't have to be this awful thing. They actually help define where the freedom is so that we can operate freely within the boundary lines.

And so sometimes it's hard, of course, but it has done a lot to improve my relationship with my kids and also make my kids healthier people. And I'm glad for that part.

Speaker 3

What if you have kids or a spouse? If you've set this boundary of saying, "I feel like we need to bring a third party in to get help," it feels like we aren't being able to communicate.

We're not doing a good job at this, especially with our kids in tow, and they're watching this. But the spouse says, "I'm not doing that."

Speaker 1

That's a really challenging situation. But remember, we can't put a boundary on another person. We are responsible for putting a boundary on ourselves. If we need therapy and the other person is not cooperating, then it's a "me" situation. So, I'm going to go to therapy. I would love for you to join me, but it's your choice to do it or not.

Remember, the ultimate communication with a boundary is, "If this, then this." We always want to approach it from a motivation of love and a desire for each other's highest good. However, it's not seeking the other person's highest good to enable them to stay in potentially toxic behaviors, extreme dysfunction, addictions, or whatever issues different people in different relationships are dealing with.

We can't control them, but we can absolutely exercise self-control. If we need counseling and they're not willing, then it's a personal responsibility. Now, I'm going to go.

Speaker 3

Go back. This is just a crazy question, but go back to young Lisa. Let's say you're in college even, and you didn't know any of this, but you loved Jesus. What would you say to young Lisa?

Speaker 1

Well, young Lisa in college knew facts about God, but didn't have a thriving relationship with God. So to me, I had kind of a deal with God back then. Like, I would follow the rules because I am a good rule follower. I'll follow the rules, and then I expect you to hold up your end of the deal to protect and to, you know, bless me and, you know, whatever else. So I had such a limited understanding.

So first of all, I would say to young Lisa, don't pursue relationships outside of pursuing a relationship with God first. Your relationship with God isn't where it needs to be. And so we've got to get that straight, because that sets the foundation for really making sure that your ability to choose relationships is gonna be much healthier if you have that foundation. Right? I didn't have that foundation. So my parameters of looking for people to date or even friendships or whatever, you know, I just didn't have the foundation of looking for the right people. My foundation was more, are they fun? Are they cute? You know, like, are we in close proximity so that we can do stuff together or whatever. And I think that's a pretty common way that friendships are formed and that sometimes even marriages are formed. Right? So I would say to young Lisa, let's get that straight first.

The second thing I would say to young Lisa is don't compromise the best of who you are. You know, I said it earlier, but I'm gonna say it again. We shouldn't be diminishing the best of who we are to cover up the worst of who someone else is. And as I look back, my counselor Jim said my picker was broken. You have to be careful how you say that. Right. But my picker was broken because I was so... I don't know if it's that I was so desperate or I was so eager or I just so wanted the feeling of, like, being somebody's girlfriend or being someone's wife. You know, I dreamt about it so long that I found myself excusing things that I should never have excused. I found myself overlooking things that I shouldn't overlook.

And I wrote in one of my recent books, why is it that for me, a red flag has to be burning down to the ground before I tilt my head and go, huh? That was actually kind of red, wasn't it? You know? And so I would tell younger Lysa, if you smell smoke, there is a fire. Don't ignore it. Don't cover it up. Investigate what it is, because you're talking about the rest of your life here.

And when you know better, you do better. So it's easy for me to speak to younger Lisa. Younger Lisa didn't have the tools. I didn't know what I didn't know. And so I have a lot of grace for myself looking back, and I don't beat myself up thinking, ah, if you would have done better. No, I didn't know better, so I didn't do better. But now I know better and I'm doing better.

Speaker 3

But you're also helping all the younger Lisas to not make those things.

Speaker 2

Yeah. I was thinking when you described younger Lysa, that's all of us.

Speaker 3

Yes.

Speaker 2

And I just wonder, you know, there's so many thinking, I'm going to unhappy marriage, should I get out? When it's not. It isn't destructive. It's just a. It's a normal marriage that's unhappy, which is pretty common.

You're talking about, you know, when it's a destructive pattern, it's a lot different. Even though you got into it with wrong. I mean, we all do, right?

Speaker 1

Yeah. Yeah. Well. And, you know, we shouldn't stay in isolation. I think that's the biggest thing. We hide, right? We do. And in isolation, that's where the enemy can really, really do a number on us.

So whether you're in a difficult friendship and you're worried the friendship may end, or if you're in a difficult parent relationship with your parents, or even if you're the parent and you've got children that you're having a difficult relationship with, or a marriage, or whatever it is, don't stay in isolation. You know, it's not that you want to tell everybody, but you need to tell somebody and choose wisely who those somebodies are.

You know, I remember my counselor told me to get a personal board of directors. And I did. So I have a personal board of directors now. It's not for my ministry; it's for me. I don't make a move without calling these people that I know, I trust, and I have history with. They love the Lord, and they're smart in the areas that I ask for counsel in.

And, yeah, my personal board of directors are really important. It's not a massive group of people; it's a small group of people, but they're safe people. They help me see things that I don't always see.

Speaker 3

I've loved, too, your honesty in every book. You're super honest about where you are, where you've been, and where you're going. I love your passion for Jesus, that it's all about him.

And I like the practicality of this book, too. I love that at the end of each chapter you have "Now, let's live this." You break it down into what we should remember, receive, reflect, and pray about. I thought, oh, this is just a great book to go through. It's not a book just to read and be inspired, but it's a book to allow Jesus to really change us.

To me, it's not so much about change as it is about learning and giving more of ourselves to him every day and being able to receive from him.

I'm just wondering, would you pray for us? Like, pray for those that are like, "I need this. I'm not sure what to do." You know what to pray?

Speaker 1

Absolutely.

Lord, I pray right now for the person listening that they are in some kind of a difficult, possibly even destructive relationship. And, Lord, whether it's a friendship or parental relationship or one of their kids or marriage or whatever it is, Lord, they're listening to this and they've heard, like, where there's chaos, there's usually a lack of a boundary. And they feel the chaos, but the boundary makes them scared, because every boundary will cost us something.

And so, Lord, I pray that you would give them wisdom, that you would meet them in the pages of scripture and that you would just lavish your grace and your mercy on them, because when you're hurting, everything feels so much harder. But, Lord, I pray that you would just wrap your tender mercies around them and help them see that there's always a way with you. There's a way forward and sometimes there's a way out.

Lord, sometimes your redemption is reconciliation and sometimes it's a rescue. But only you know, Lord, so help us to be obedient today. And Lord, I pray that you would just shed enough light on the very next step that that person is supposed to take that we're lifting up today.

Lord, be with them. Be with them. Be with them. In your name we pray. Amen.

Speaker 3

This is Anna Dave Wilson with Family Life Today. And man, it's always great to be with Lisa Terker. Her wisdom, her insights, her call to walk with Jesus is always inspiring. Her book is called Good Boundaries and Goodbyes.

Speaker 2

Yeah, and it sounds like it's the end of something, but actually if you understand what she's saying, it could be the beginning of something because you're setting boundaries which allow the relationship to flourish. Again, she's the best. Her books, all of them are phenomenal.

So you can pick up *Good Boundaries and Goodbyes* at familylifetoday.com. There's a link in our show notes, and I would encourage you to get it. If you're walking through something or you know somebody that's walking through something, buy that book for them.

Speaker 3

Family Life Today is a donor supported production of Family Life Accrue ministry helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.